A. Field of the Invention
The invention generally concerns a water-permeable absorbent material in which a plant material having a water-soluble skin-active ingredient is loaded therein. The material can be used to treat a variety of skin conditions after being subjected to water.
B. Description of Related Art
Plant extracts are widely used in skin care formulations. One problem that arises in using such products is that the active ingredients in the plant extracts may be unstable in the formulations. Also, such formulas are structured for topical application to skin and include a variety of other base-set of ingredients. The base-set of ingredients typically constitutes the overwhelming majority of ingredients in the formulations, which can dilute the effectiveness of the active ingredient from the plant extract. This results in product formulations that have unstable actives in relatively low or non-efficacious amounts. To exacerbate the situation, current product formulations oftentimes rely on the use of preservatives (e.g., parabens, chlorobutanol, a phenol, sorbic acid, thimerosal, etc.) to maintain the product formulations, which can add to the costs associated with producing such formulations.